The Office for National Statistics (ONS) ruled that the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) will not feed directly into the country's inflation statistics, per Reuters.

Key takeaways

“The energy bill rebate should be treated as increasing household income rather than reducing their expenditure.”

"Therefore... the payment will not affect either the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH), the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) or the Retail Prices Index (RPI).”

Market reaction

GBP/USD was last seen trading at 1.1675, adding 0.18% on the day, little changed on the above piece of news.